Current Designer:

Previous Designer:

Gianni Versace (1978–1997)

You can count on one hand the number of fashion houses that enjoy the name recognition that Versace does. Today, under the leadership of Donatella Versace—just as in the ’80s and ’90s when the brand was run by her brother Gianni—it is a universal symbol of all that is glamorous and decadent. Versace doesn’t make clothes that are avant-garde, arty, or untouchably elegant; it makes clothes for red carpet photo calls in Cannes and parties aboard a rap mogul’s mega-yacht in Monaco.

Gianni, who founded the company in 1978, was a fashion rock star. He played to his public with grandiose gestures and a genius for marketing.“He was the first to realize the value of the celebrity in the front row, and the value of the supermodel, and put fashion on an international media platform,” Vogue Editor in Chief Anna Wintour said in 1997. “He relished media attention and masterminded it, and everybody followed in his footsteps.”